


Safety Deposit

by i_am_therefore_i_fight



Series: tacenda [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, sad brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 23:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6929086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_therefore_i_fight/pseuds/i_am_therefore_i_fight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why did Bobby have the box in the first place? Better question: Why did the box ever need to exist?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safety Deposit

“There’s still some stuff that I don’t get.”

Sam gives him this tired look, like, _What questions could you_ possibly _still have?_ But Dean persists, because even though Sam deserves a break, Dean needs everything. Every detail.

“This box came from Bobby. How come… why did…” Dean swallows, hands tightening on the steering wheel. “What I’m trying to say is, do you think… did he read ‘em?”

“Never even saw ‘em,” Sam replies without hesitation. Dean glances at him and Sam’s staring out the windshield, mouth twisted ruefully like, _Here we go._

“Then how did…”

“He set up the deposit box in his name. But it was for me. I sent all my letters straight there. He didn’t even have a key; he mailed me the key right after he took out the rental, and I threw it away. The bank had a key, though, obviously. And the box was still in his name. And you were his primary beneficiary. So I guess when they opened it and didn’t know what to do with his stuff, they just figured they’d turn it over to you and you could do what you want with it.”

_But it wasn’t his stuff. It was your stuff. You threw away the key to it and someone still managed to drag it all out of its hiding place and hand it over to me._

“But you told him,” Dean presses, even though it’s not what he wants to say (because he doesn’t know how to say what he wants to say— _I’m sorry that people keep carving you up and forcing you to spill your guts_?) “About the letters.”

“Not exactly.”

“What did he think they were?”

Sam sighs, leaning his temple against the window. “Can we stop for coffee?” he asks, sounding more tired than he has any right to, like the conversation is wearing him out already. ( _How do you think I feel, Sam? I was never any good at this. You’re the one who found the words, not me._ )

Dean’s not gonna say no, but he can’t just say yes, either. That’s not his way. “We stopped for breakfast an hour ago, princess. You’re killin’ our time.”

“I have to show you something,” Sam says (ominously, Dean thinks—but then, everything Sam says to him seems ominous now, like there could always be something hidden behind it, something huge that he somehow managed to miss). “Let’s stop somewhere.”

—-

“It’s called ‘Post Secret’,” Sam explains. “They told us about it at school, when I was… I guess I would’ve been about twelve.”

He turns the laptop to face Dean on the other side of the table, and Dean leans forward, brow creasing as he reads the entries.

At last, leaning back in his seat with his face fixed in a scowl, he says, “I don’t get it.” He’s frustrated and a little pissed, because Sam is trying to tell him something important and he’s missing it (like always. is he ever going to get better at this?).

“You write a confession on a post card and send it in. It’s cathartic,” Sam adds, “because you’re finally getting it out in the open, but you also have total anonymity.”

“Unless the cops pull your fingerprints off it,” Dean points out. “So, what—you saw this and thought, ‘That looks like a good idea, I think I’ll tell the whole world I’m in love with my brother’… and then you, what, got addicted? But—hang on. You didn’t send your confessions in to this thing—” he points at the laptop screen, “—you sent them to Bobby instead.”

Sam nods glumly. “I thought, even for something like this, I was too much of a freak.” He gives a deep, shuddering sigh. “And all the things I wanted to confess wouldn’t fit on a postcard.”

His gaze fixes somewhere over Dean’s shoulder, lips pressing together, hands twitching restlessly on his coffee cup. Dean thinks, _Sam, I don’t even know how all those things fit inside of_ you _._

His brother had been such a small kid, but always defiant, always brave. And Dean wonders now how those slim shoulders were never bowed under the weight of their secrets.

“Drink your coffee,” he says, instead of saying any of that. “We gotta hit the road.”

—-

“So,” Dean says, after almost an hour of silence. “You didn’t send them to the secret-thingy-people, you sent them to Bobby. But, no. Actually you didn’t send them to Bobby. Not exactly. I mean—you sent them to Bobby. But they were for me.”

Sam gives him a look, head tilted to the side, one eyebrow raised. _Duh._

“I don’t get it,” Dean says again, and he’s starting to hate the sound of those words.

“What’s to get?”

“You saw the secret thingy. And it seemed like a good idea, but you didn’t want to air all your dirty laundry in front of strangers, so you sent them to Bobby.”

“I asked him what I should do. Told him I wanted to do something like that. I guess he thought it would be good for me, so he, he offered.” Sam’s twisting the seatbelt compulsively, expression blank as he stares out the windshield. “I guess… he was worried about me. Even then. I think he knew that I… maybe he just hoped it would help me, you know. Get my head on straight.”

Dean doesn’t ask, _Did it work?_ Because, he thinks, no. I know the answer to this one already.

“So you wrote letters. To me.”

“Yeah.”

“Mind me askin’ why?”

Sam heaves a sigh.

“I know, I know. Stupid question. Humor me.”

Sam shakes his head, lifts both hands to scrub at his face.

“Who else?” he asks rhetorically.

—-

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Why don’t you tell me you love me?” Sam replies without missing a beat, as if that is in any way relevant, as if that is the natural response and not some kind of verbal slap in the face that makes Dean’s foot stutter on the gas pedal.

“ _What_? What do you—Sam, I tell you all the time what you mean to me. All the fucking time. I give fucking speeches, I—what d’you need from me, Sam, a dozen fuckin’ roses? ‘Cause, you know, we can pull over at the next town and find a—”

“Dean, relax,” Sam says calmly. “I know why. It’s ‘cause I’m supposed to know already.”

—-

Sam closes the motel door and turns around, and Dean is stepping into his space.

“I love you,” Dean tells him seriously, holding his gaze like a schoolyard dare. _Go ahead. Make fun. I’ve got nothing to hide._

Sam’s mouth curves up, and he tries not to feel bitter. “I know.”

“Then why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“Did it surprise you? Really?” Sam wants to distract Dean, wants to step forward and fit his hands to Dean’s hips and kiss him and see if it takes them anywhere—but he should be grateful, he thinks, that Dean wants to talk about this at all.

Dean has been on him over everything, lately. Picking at every scab, hounding down every detail. It’s so different from Dean’s total information lockdown of before—but, well. This—this doggedness, this mission-oriented mindset (with Sam as the mission, he thinks, grimly humorous)—is still very Dean. Sam should’ve known his brother wasn’t going to do this by halves.

“Did you think I _knew_?” Dean demands. “ _Any_ of it? How much you thought about leaving, how often you thought about _killing_ yourself? How often you thought about—” He stops suddenly, swallowing, and Sam becomes aware all over again of how _close_ they are to each other, Dean’s breath mingling with his.

Seeing his chance, Sam bends his neck to bring their lips almost together. “You?” he breathes, and relishes the way Dean’s breath stutters. “Was that what really scared you, Dean? Thinking about me wanting you for all those years? I wasn’t subtle about it. I wasn’t subtle about any of it, Dean. I was hurting. I know you saw that. I loved you. You must’ve seen that too. What else was there to say?”

“Sam,” Dean says in a voice that’s barely there.

“I guess I just didn’t realize that you didn’t watch me the way I watched you.” Sam nuzzles his nose against Dean’s, but he thinks from the stricken look on his brother’s face that it doesn’t take any of the sting out of his words. “I didn’t know I was so hard to read.”

Abruptly, Dean shoves him away. Sam stumbles back and slumps against the door, regret washing over him already. He should be used to this, by now. Dean coaxing him open and then flaying him to the quick.

But Dean’s just standing there in the middle of the floor, head bowed, shoulders shaking, a hand over his mouth. It takes Sam a moment to realize that he’s crying soundlessly.

“Dean?”

Dean wraps his other arm around his waist, bending over almost double, abs flexing in the effort to stay silent. His eyes are squeezed shut and his face is wet and pink and Sam is reminded, suddenly, that Dean is lost too, and even though they’re lost together, it doesn’t mean they’re not still afraid of the woods.

“Dean.” Sam pushes off from the door and goes to his brother, puts both arms around him, and Dean wraps one arm around Sam’s waist and wipes his nose on Sam’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says thickly, “I’m sorry, Sam. I’m just stupid. Out of everybody you picked me and I’m just so goddamn stupid. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Dean.”

“It’s not okay. I didn’t see. I didn’t see, Sam, you gotta believe me, ‘cause if I’d known—man, you can think I’m really fuckin’ ignorant for this, but for God’s sake, that’s gotta be better than thinking that I _saw_ and I didn’t _do_ anything. Sam. I would’a done something. If I’d known. I would’a done anything. You gotta… you gotta know that.”

“I know.”

“Sammy.”

“It’s okay, Dean.”

—-

“Dean.”

“Hm.”

“You awake?”

“ ‘m now.”

“You were all the good things, too.”

“…”

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.  And I know I’ve messed up, but… I could’ve turned out a lot worse. If it wasn’t for you.”

Dean moves against him, places a barely-there kiss on the bridge of his nose.

“I love you,” Dean breathes, and it sounds like a confession. Then, after a moment: “You terrify me.”

Sam thinks, _I know what you mean._

“I’m going back to sleep,” Dean says. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“I won’t.”

“If you do, take me with you.”

“Okay.”


End file.
